The Growing Youth Project (GYP) began in the fall of 2005 as a
youth-led community food assessment, aimed at providing
youth in the community with valuable employment, promoting
an understanding and dialogue around issues residents face
with respect to food, health, and nutrition, and developing a
vision and action strategy for addressing food justice issues in the
community. This assessment set the stage for the integration of a
wide range of food, health, and farming activities at the
Alameda Point Collaborative. To learn more about our program
visit http://www.apcollaborative.org.
For more information you can contact Kate Casale on
510.898.7828 or [email protected]
A Youth Advocacy Network Event was hosted at The
Alameda Point Collaborative, Thursday March 27, 08.
The event showcased ten bay area non profit
organizations: Community Change, Alameda Slow Food,
Bay Area Legal Aid, West Oakland Youth Standing
Empower (WYSE), Food First, Oakland Children’s
Hospital, California Food Policy Advocates, Alameda
County Community Food Bank and UC Cooperative
Extension and California Partnership.
These organizations offered valuable advocacy
resources and enabled the Growing Youth Project (GYP)
participants to learn more about key issues affecting non
profit services and healthy choices.
In preparation for the Youth Advocacy Network Event, GYP
attended an advocacy training session.
At the Youth Advocacy Network Event, GYP participants
conducted in depth interviews with the non profit groups.
Working in pairs, primed with a series of challenging
questions, the youth spent a number of hours engaged
in an open dialogue with the representatives. The youth
received high praise from the organizations.
The Youth Advocacy Network Event
Lylie Fisher, Community Engagement Specialist, created
a month long training program for GYP participants. The
series included: large and small group discussions; art
making; oral and written storytelling and coaching.
This program supported youth ages 15–20 to better
understand their personal relationship with advocacy
and open new pathways for communication.
Farrell and Lashaelia welcomed the non profit groups.
Of the ten organizations who attended, The GYP
participants selected four as outstanding examples of
community change advocates.
Slow Food Alameda
Represented by Mark Hardwick
http://slowfoodalameda.blogspot.com/
Q: How can I be an advocate with my peers? How can I
influence my family?
A: To be a good role model don’t just talk about it or just
think of making a change, take action! Also don’t be
negative.
Oakland Children’s Hospital
Q: What is the history of your organization?
A: It started as a response to fast food in Italy, with two
guys who saw McDonalds and decided to create a slow
food movement. Now 60,000 people in the Italy and
100,000 of people in the US are Slow Food advocates.
Q. How does the work you do affect your life/community.
A. I believe I am doing something bigger than myself. I
learn from my job everyday, this influences who I am.
Food First
Represented by Joey and Annie
http://www.foodfirst.org/
Q: What do you see as the greatest challenge when
communicating healthy choice issues?
A: Trying to make it sound important to people - not like
they're some hippies wanting to change people, but
wanting to communicate the seriousness of health
issues without sounding self-righteous. You can only
give people the information, they make the choices.
Slow Food Alameda
Q: What does advocacy mean to you and why do you
like doing it?
A: I enjoy doing good for the world, for the earth, and for
people. Advocacy is a good thing.
Q: How can I make healthy choices when they all seem
so different, hard to find, bad tasting, or expensive?
A: Healthy choices should be monumental without a
monumental effort that seems too hard or big. Start
small by planting some seeds in the ground or buying
some vegetables. Then bigger changes will come.
Q: What issue or campaign has been the most
challenging to work on and what was the biggest
challenge?
A: The biggest issue is how to include people who own
businesses and don’t know the importance slow food
choices. It is challenging as the community has eating
habits that are hard to break.
Oakland Children’s Hospital (Community Outreach)
Represented by Lisa Peterson
http://www.childrenshospitaloakland.org/
Q. How does your organization decide to work on a
particular issue?
A. The Oakland Children’s Hospital bases its decisions
on community needs and specific research.
Q. How do you get the community involved?
A. Our important partner is the community. We train
community members to be healthy and go out and offer
outreach to other community members.
Food First
Q: Why are so many people working on improving health
and nutrition, does it seem like things are getting worse?
A: We are up against a lot of people with money who
promote bad food. So many people work on it because
they have loved ones that didn't eat good and got
diseases like diabetes and cancer. It is working against
the system and that is hard, but I think we are making
slow changes.
WYSE (West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered)
Represented by Maria and Monica
http://www.standupwestoakland.org/standup/
Q: What is the biggest accomplishment of your
organization?
A: We organized a large community park clean up and
got one corner store to begin selling fresh produce in our
community.
Q: What should every young person know about what
your organization does?
A: They need to know that they are the ones with the
power - we have to let them know that they can have a
voice to speak about change in their community. We
welcome any youth who want to speak out about good
eating, clean food, health choices.
GYP participants are learning more about advocacy and
how they too are changing the world. During the
workshop series the youth identified well known writers,
religious leaders, political activists, musicians and
athletes who as role models inspire them to believe in
their dreams.
The personal stories of these role models support the
youth to understand the passion and commitment that
fuels personal achievements and community advocacy.
Over summer 2008 the GYP plans an Alameda
community outreach advocacy project.
WYSE (West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered)
Q: How can my healthy choices impact the larger
community?
A: You can set the example by buying fruits and
vegetables and talking to store owners to ask them to
sell those products - it's a good thing and other people
will notice and start doing it too.
The following stories and art works represent the
Growing Youth Project participants and their
dreams to change the world.
Ladonna
Farrell
Hi my name is Ladonna, I am 17 years old, I attend
Encinal High School and I am in the 11th grade. I live in
Alameda and have been living here for 7 years and I
have seen my community make a lot of changes. I
started working the Growing Youth Project in 2007. I
have learned a lot about how to eat healthier and that
fast foods can cause heart problems. It’s good to know
about your health while young so we can grow up to be
looking good and healthy.
In my community I would like to improve a lot. Many
people in our community want to come to our cooking
classes or to the community garden to help make our
community a better place to live and enjoy where we live
while eating healthier. I want to improve the community
by having people come out and help out, as well as
attend our dinners and our family health nights. But what
I really want is everybody to stop thinking that eating
healthy is a bad thing and start realizing that this is life
and not a game, before time is up…
Roller Coaster
My life is like a roller coaster,
it twists and turns,
it can do loops and dives,
and then it suddenly stops.
Then starts back up again.
My life is difficult but my passion gets me through.
My inspiration is cooking, my passion is food.
I hate the wasteful and the arrogant
and those who are rude.
My history is sad and joyful all in one,
even though I have just begun.
I strive for the best and even if I fall,
I must pick myself up and stand tall,
to show I am proud of who I am and my life so far.
My life is like a roller coaster,
can’t you see even though I keep telling you.
You’ll never truly see, because you’re not me.
I would change my community by passing out flyers and
inviting them to the community dinners and signing them
up to help out in the community garden when ever they
have time, by stopping and talking to them about what’s
going on in this month. By having more people coming to
cooking classes that we have on Mondays, I want at
least everybody in our community to start eating
healthier and by telling them there are many ways to get
in shape and to how to eating healthy.
A.B.
I grew up in a household of 10 people to a 2 bedroom
apartment. I don’t know how we did it but we made it
happen, as I got older people moved out. I grew up in
Richmond and Sacramento most of my life. My mom
was going the wrong way and my dad couldn’t have his
kids around that type of behavior so I grew up with him
and my step mom who took care of me until I thought I
was ready to get out and take care of myself.
I basically did everything a teenager from the hood
would do; hanging out with people I called family and
friends when all they were doing was dragging me into
more trouble. I was smart enough to know but not quick
enough to react in a positive way, because I was seeing
improvement in the things that I wanted as accessories.
Lashaelia
My dad was hard on me but I was a rebellious teenager
struggling to learn for myself. So he gave me enough
rope to hang myself, and I slipped up and went to
juvenile hall at the age of 15 for about a month, after that
I decided to stay out of trouble. I did the whole probation
thing and got it over faster than I expected and returned
to my hometown. I give my mom some credit because
she stepped into my life ready to take care of business.
My dad and I were still having a close relationship over
the phone and I think I saw him one time in a year in a
half. He had my back even if I was in the wrong.
Now I’m doing better and everything was going ok. The
hardest memory is the phone call from Mom and she
told me to come home and I didn’t have to go to school.
She gave me a big hug and told me my dad had passed
away from a heart attack….I was devastated but I held
my ground and kept under control because I came too
far to end back up in jail.
My name is Lashaelia and I am a 17 years old girl. I am
a person with two split personalities. I often focus on
everyone else, seeing somebody making wrong
decisions makes me want to cry.
I love my community even though they don’t trust
themselves. Most people see me as an angry young
lady, that’s just because I don’t know how to express my
self. Inside I am dying this painful death. My body can’t
take any more stress, the reason I stress is because I
think nobody else sees what I see. Drugs were the main
focus of my child hood life. But I never did figure out why
that had to happen to me.
My life had changed since way back when. My mama
always told me life wasn’t fair. But know I finally see
why. My mama was a single parent all the way through. I
hate when people try to tell my mama what she should
do right they haven’t been through the things she went
through.
Motto: If you don’t like the way something is going, go
and fix it your self.
All my dad wanted for all his children was to be the best
we can be at whatever we do. So I am now going in the
right direction even after all my difficult past experiences.
I feel motivated to make positive changes in my
community here at Alameda Point Collaborative by
working with other teens that have similar goals and
aspirations as I do; I believe we all can make an
IMPACT!!!!
Andrea
That is when I found the important parts of my life. I was
introduced to basketball properly, learned the basics of
the game. From then on I made a lot of new friends who
helped me widen my experience. I wasn’t into
technology besides video games until about age 11
when I got my first phone. My big brother got me into it
because he had so much stuff in his room that I was
interested in. Today, I would be nothing without
technology! I have a lot of technology of my own.
I want to change the attitude of my community, meaning
to get them liking and trying out things that the GYP
does, like gardening. Maybe the GYP can host a once a
month “Help Out Day” (working title) for the community
to come out to the farm and/or garden and help out. I am
motivated to make this change because I know a couple
of people that will come out and help the GYP, so I want
the rest to come and help their own community.
Judging someone you don’t know is like saying you hate
something you have never tried. When you look at me
you’d probably think “Oh, she’s just another spoiled
white girl with no morals.”
But if you took the time to get to know me you would
realize that I’m not spoiled and I have very strong
morals. I also feel very passionate about a lot of things,
such as, nutrition and being a constructive part of your
community and not a destructive one.
Jerrard
People always complain about things and don’t do
anything about it. If you have a diet related health
problem, or know someone with one, don’t just obsess
about everything that’s happened, change the future. If
kids are acting up in your community start an after
school program that will help them. You can’t just go
through life hoping and wishing for things to change,
change them yourself.
Anonymous
My passion is cars and hands-on work. I love to fix cars;
I started when I was 11 years old not knowing what I
was doing but wanting to do it because I got to get my
hands dirty and learn a lot of new things. When I was 13
I started helping people fix random things around their
houses or yards but mostly my passion is to learn how to
fix cars and other things.
I would love to improve the bad things around my
community, like violence and vandalism. I want to make
it a safe place for people to come and be happy.
I would make changes by getting out there and putting
my words on the table. If we all put in a hand, we can
make this a better place.
My name is ?! I grew up on the streets of Oakland until I
was about the age of eight, then I moved to Alameda.
Cassie
My passion is my family and friends. Without them my
life would end they are everything to me. They are the
key to my heart and the new beginning to my life. They
are the other half to my life. No one can replace them,
they bring out the best in me. They are my soul, the right
to my wrong, they’re my family. I’m the moon and they’re
my stars. We’re one and nobody can ever break us apart
– they’re the reason for me still being here. They help
me get through obstacles that I face and headaches and
problems that I get everyday. When I’m not happy or
feeling down they pick me back up and make me proud.
They’re everything I don’t want to change that, I love
them and that’s how I want it to stay.
In my community many people I know are surrounded by
hate crimes, drugs, and violence. That’s what I want to
change - I’m here to help people change their ways by
thinking new things. Many people think that hate crimes
are the way to solve their problems, but it’s not, it’s
stupid. If you change your attitude and think brand new,
then this world will be a better place - no violence or
arguing or hate crimes, just peace and quiet like the
world should be.
I plan to do this by having people look at new things and
experience them. Also like I’m doing now helping people
obtain better eating habits. If more people show that they
care about this world then many people would change
their ways and show that they do care and maybe this
world will be safer for everybody.
Chanelle
As this world goes on I want to be noticed and
remembered for what a great person I tried to be.
Helping people is what I love to do. I am not rich nor
have magical powers but I do have the fire and drive to
make a difference. I love to learn new things because I
try to use them in my everyday life.
My passion creates my drive to do well, which keeps me
motivated. I was taught if one is struggling and you can
help the person then they help themselves. Seeing
someone happy and healthy is something intangible and
won’t go away like money. I hate people complaining
about an issue and they do nothing about it, even if it
can help them.
Life inspires me as long as I’m breathing, that’s enough
to make me get out there and make a change. My goal
in life is to succeed, meaning not to be a failure. I want to
become a lawyer that way I can help people while
helping myself, I’m helping myself by helping people
everyday.
If I’m a lawyer I can help someone in the court room who
maybe innocent and needs to get off and I’m helping
others because I’ll have enough money to donate to the
people that need it the most. I’m helping myself by
seeing other people happy which makes me feel good
and healthy.
Latasha
At my new community in Alameda I feel it is a lot safer
and quieter. I occupy myself with two jobs and one of
them is where I reside in Alameda.
It is a very encouraging at GYP and we work as a team
to make residents of Alameda Point become healthier.
The only thing in the future that I would change is just
letting more individuals know about how much of a
terrific project we participate in as youth in Alameda. I
will start by showing residents GYP’s website and
explaining what we do to more people.
New Beginnings
Take a look at your self is what I say.
Make changes for yourself, will you start today?
There’s so much pain in some of us.
Sometimes I ask who can I trust?
Now why should I make change today,
because there is trust in all of us.
I now am free from pain.
That is my main focus I have gained.
Anonymous
Free yourself from all the pain that’s in your life.
There are new beginnings, to come.
Trust me you will see a big change.
Kalei
What inspires me are my goals for the future. Where I
have been and where I would like to go and become
gives me inspiration for my life from day to day.
One of the most important things about my history is
realizing how many of my loved ones aren’t here
anymore and are not coming back. Death is memorable
for me because one minute you’re with some one and
the next minute you can never hug, kiss, smell or feel
them ever again.
My passion is video games because I have played them
ever since I was little and I was always good at them.
That’s why I want to be a game designer because when
I play a game I know what people like and know how to
make it better and I get to be one of the first people to
play it.
I want my community to achieve a lower murder rate and
less violence than currently appears on the Oakland
streets. My peers and I are tired of attending funerals on
a month to month basis.
I hate liars because I hate not getting told the truth and if
they lie I can’t trust them anymore. I hate love
sometimes because you can get really hurt or it could
just mess you up.
My loved ones have been killed in my neighborhood
everyday. What encourages me is to do right and
occupy myself with good behavior and non-violent
individuals. I believe I can make these changes as an
individual and not be around negative activities.
The whole reason I want to become a game designer is
because my cousin Steve, he taught me everything I
know about games. So why not use what he taught me
and make money. I am inspired to be a game designer
not only for myself but for Steve because he is no longer
here.